RFI: Border Community - Nathan Fake, James Holden, The MFA, Petter etc.

Luke Abbott's new album is doing more for me on first play than the James Holden one ever really managed.

Anyone else go to the Holden/Koreless/Luke Abbott Terry Riley homaging thing at the Barbican last night? SO GOOD.

Sounds interesting. What was it like?

Funny, I dug out an old mix of Border Community stuff I made back in '06 to listen to at the gym just yesterday.

Going to see James Holden again next month! His live setup sounds cool.

Long modular synth pieces (c. 40mins) from both Holden and Abbott. Abbott's was a big drone piece, essentially, Holden's was incredible. He had a (fairly restrained) tabla player with him and the were sitting opposite one another, he hit on this one gorgeous melody and just let it run and run and run, building and building more synth lines over the top of it.

Koreless had a ten-piece string section, all sitting in a line, in the dark, each with one large light bulb in front of them. Each player played one note and one note only whenever their light came on, playing it differently according to the brightness and duration of the light. Koreless was off to the side of the stage, controlling the lights via computer and therefore essentially both conducting and scoring the piece in real time. It wasn't that minimal, the patterns kept changing and getting more and more complex, the whole thing was astonishing actually.

that sounds fantastic. i'd love to hear a version of In C played entirely on digital instruments or whatever...

sounds amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQsHZ0eyPl8

new james holden finally out next month, strongly suspect it's going to be incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58y6Kdv9ZV4

out on november 3 on border community

nice!

I was relistening to James Holden's "At the Controls" mix the other day and remembering how enjoyable his style is

Out tomorrow. Hope I can pick it up.

the glass is half full = the synthesizers are wildly too loud in the mix

the glass is half empty = the drums are way too quiet in the mix

really liking this so far. some of it is very... boredoms?

this is straight solar energy music

okay it's all gone a bit steve hillage now

yurt the fuck out, people!

(rly good record btw)

Thunder Moon Gathering is so good, a step out into this huge dark space. But yes, drums could be louder

really liking this so far. some of it is very... boredoms?

― plp will eat itself (NickB), Friday, November 3, 2017 12:54 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is straight solar energy music

― plp will eat itself (NickB), Friday, November 3, 2017 1:00 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay it's all gone a bit steve hillage now

― plp will eat itself (NickB), Friday, November 3, 2017 1:07 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're making this sound awesome

i'm digging it.

i remember when the last holden album came out, there was a small rush of cool cosmic techno in a similar vein around that time, stuff like stellar om source "joy one mile" and huerco s "colonial patterns"

i like that sound

it's harder to feel any techno roots in this one tbh, feels more like it's coming more from psych rock and jazz and non-western folk musics

interesting! can't wait to listen

Holden is virtually unique among 00s house and techno producers in that his steps away from the dancefloor have made him more interesting rather than less.

Fucking loved this on first instance, crazy cosmic Wicker Man pagan forest festival music. Some of the early tracks seem to have hit on some halfway point between Cluster or Harmonia and I dunno Pentangle or someone.

not sure which producers you're thinking of, but i think in the case of a lot of what i am thinking about the producers have moved from experimental music more toward dance music as opposed to moving in the other direction (like holden)

personally i think holden is interesting in both modes - still love his "balance" and "at the control" mixes

Yeah I wasn't responding to your post in particular (I love Joy One Mile and had no idea that Stella Om Source was coming to dance music from a different background). Holden's mixes are good ('At The Controls' is great) but as a producer he was never especially interesting to me, even if his original sound has been aped to death in the intervening years.

The one track on this that really sounds like it might be borne out of techno is also the one thing that sounds kind of like a radiohead jam (each moment like the first)

When I say techno I probably actually just mean boards of candada tbh

Shamanic psych Sun Ra jazz techno. Perfect music for a ayahuasca trip. This is truly an album for our 10s times.

have you done ayahuasca or is this a conjecture

this reminds me of when [redacted] got sonned by [redacted] in a cocaine beef

I’ve got the music here, just pondering

This does exactly what I hoped it would.

Excellent album

listening to this now, and it sounds like Popol Vuh!

also, was going to say the closest companion to this is the recent Floating Points stuff (tho this is a little wilder) -- and forgot they had actually been on an EP together w/Maalem Mahmoud Guinia in 2015.

I haven't been able to get into Floating Points...it was just too clean and refined. Holden w/ his modular fun has been able to grab that live exciting noisy everythings out of control kind of vibe thats hard to do (actually it's easy to do, but it's hard to do it while still being in control?)

yeah, FP tends to err on the side of post rock that I find a bit boring, but when he gets it, he really get it (I would say Kuiper is the closest to this). But really impressed at this Holden thing, guess I'll have to go back and check his recent stuff.

oh my god this rules

i don't get much out of floating points but their new record that sounds like Meddle/DSOTM is GREAT

Dominique if you slept on the inheritors please listen ASAP.

Played it at record club: https://devonrecordclub.com/2017/11/09/james-holden-the-animal-spirits-the-animal-spirits-round-104-nicks-choice/

looks like he's touring, but mostly europe

someone check out the tour!

I saw him at Le Poison Rouge a few years back, was great.

also saw him a couple of years back touring 'the inheritors'. was just analogue synths and a live drummer - like a cave-rave version of silver apples. would love to see him with the full band

yup, saw him doing that tour at mutek

Great words, Nick. This descriptor is both notable and irresistible to those of us forever influenced by late Talk Talk or post-Japan Sylvian: "To go from control-freakish, micro-edited techno experiments to what’s essentially live, improvised kraut-jazz-prog-rock, is quite a move in only three albums." Even better that Holden's record easily meets the resulting expectations. Wonderful stuff.

just to say that any time the new record is playing, everyone in the car (i drive a fair bit) asks me what it is because they are entranced.

Saw them live last weekend and it was fantastic, everything you would expect and want them to be.

new James Holden single (from upcoming album) is sensational - https://jamesholden.bandcamp.com/album/imagine-this-is-a-high-dimensional-space-of-all-possibilities